


The Essence of the Matter

by Teao



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Trans Character, Trans Draco Malfoy, Transitioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:41:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24894841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teao/pseuds/Teao
Summary: When Draco has to reveal a lifelong secret, Harry has to come to terms with it. Together, they explore the options.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 18
Kudos: 184





	The Essence of the Matter

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with transition as a core theme. I wondered for a bit wether I should post it, since I'm unlikely to properly understand all the issues around it, being cis myself. However, I would not hesitate to write a male character even though I am female, so I decided to go for it. I hope it can be seen as I intended- merely an exploration of how the characters might deal with an issue. Apologies for any (almost inevitable!) errors!

When Draco got in from work, he found Harry sitting in the living room, idly staring into the fire. “Hi,” Draco said, hanging his cloak on the hook in the hall. If, eight years ago, someone had told seventeen-year-old Draco that he’d be living in a smallish flat on one of the courtyards off Diagon Alley, he’d have laughed. Back then, he’d thought that the future held either glory at the Dark Lord’s side or a cell in Azkaban. Not a job as a clerk at the _Prophet_ and a small flat with big windows overlooking the grassy courtyard.

If someone had told him he’d share the flat, and a bed, with none other than Harry Potter, he’d probably have cried, because one of his most closely guarded secrets would have come out. He was in love with Harry Potter, and probably had been since Harry had refused to shake his hand, way back in first year. 

“Do you want to go out for dinner tonight?” Draco continued merrily, oblivious to Harry’s silence. “It’s that or go shopping, and I just frankly can’t be arsed with shopping and cooking.” He leaned over Harry to kiss the other man’s cheek, then froze. In Harry’s lap was a bundle of black lace and satin. 

“I think we need to talk,” Harry said softly. 

Draco pulled back. He let out a long breath, the panic rising inside him. “Harry, I can explain!” he protested. “Please, let me explain.”

“Did you bring her here, Draco? Did you fuck her here- in our bed? Because why else would her underwear be here?”

Draco gasped like a fish out of water. His heart pounded in his ears. “It’s not like that!” he wheezed. “I never… I would never cheat on you!”

Harry brandished the pile of lacy underwear. “Oh? Really? Then what on earth is this?” he asked. His tone was calm, even, but Draco could hear the barely-controlled anger just beneath it. Harry had tried so hard to manage his anger over the last few years. 

“It’s mine.”

“What?” Harry asked, his voice hard and clipped. “I can’t hear you.”

Draco tried again, a little louder. “It’s mine.” He swallowed hard. His head was swimming, making him dizzy. Reaching behind him, he grasped blindly for the chair and used it to support himself. He closed his eyes to try to shut out the swaying world around him. “I bought them. For me.”

“For you. You expect me to believe that.”

Draco winced at the flatness of Harry’s tone. “Why on earth would I want to sleep with a woman?” he whispered. “I’m not attracted to women.”

He winced as Harry snorted. “So you expect me to believe that you just like wearing women’s underthings?” he asked, the sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “Seriously, Draco?”

Draco couldn’t move; couldn’t speak. He gripped the back of the chair to keep from falling as his heartbeat pounded in his ears. _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ his brain chanted at him. _So stupid, leaving them where he could find them!_ Distantly, he heard Harry calling his name, then the door slamming, the force shaking the ornaments on the mantelpiece and sending the snitch that lived there rolling off its pedestal and over the hearthrug. It nudged against Draco’s foot and came to rest. He opened his eyes, the firelight splintering wildly through the mist of his tears. 

Harry had left the pile of underthings in a heap on the floor. Suddenly, Draco hated them. He snatched up the lacy knickers and garter belt, the tiny, barely-there bra that sagged against his flat chest and the soft silk of the stockings. Only yesterday, he’d sat touching them, enjoying the feel of the silk and lace under his fingers. He’d been considering putting them on when Harry had come home early from a case. Flustered, Draco had shoved them under the bed instead of putting them away under a concealment charm behind the books in his bedside table. Stupid. 

Pressing down the scream that was building in his chest, he hurled the lot into the fire, then collapsed down onto the hearthrug, the wool tickling his nose as he sobbed like the world was ending. 

***

“And he just expects me to believe that he likes wearing women’s underwear!” Harry complained, staring into the dregs of his pint. “Like that’s more likely than him having a witch in our bed!”

“That’s rubbish, mate.” Ron was Harry’s field partner with the Aurors when they were on-duty and best friend in perpetuity. He pushed a new pint towards Harry. 

Hermione swirled her lemonade around in her glass. “Why is it so unbelievable?” she asked. “Draco’s never been, well, the most masculine of men.”

“Yeah, but, ‘Mione, he’s gay. He’s hardly going to be manly.”

“Would you call Harry feminine?”

Ron scoffed. “‘Course not. But that’s different. He’s Harry. And he’s not gay, strictly speaking. He likes witches too.”

Hermione pursed her lips. “I think you should hear him out, Harry. You’ve been together, what, nearly three years- don’t you think you owe him the chance to explain?”

Harry drew patterns in the condensation that had gathered on the scarred pub table. “I gave him the chance. He could have come clean- maybe if he’d just come clean, we could work on it. But not this rubbish about liking women’s underwear.”

“How do you know it’s rubbish?” Hermione pressed. “Has he ever done anything else to make you think he might be cheating on you? He’s devoted, Harry, anyone can see that.”

“Well, maybe it’s just an act.” Harry knew he sounded sullen. “Maybe it was all an act.” He drained the rest of his pint. “God, I don’t think I could stand the sight of him at the moment. Could I kip at yours tonight?” 

“We, er, sort of got rid of the spare bed, mate,” Ron said. “Had to make room for the cot and the other baby stuff.”

“We can transfigure the sofa if you want, though,” Hermione offered. “You’re always welcome, Harry- anytime. Just because we’re having a baby doesn’t mean we’ll ever not have time for you.” She reached across the table to put her hand over Harry’s. “But I really think you need to sit down and have a proper talk with Draco tomorrow, when you’ve had a chance to calm down and think things through.”

***

The bed transfigured from Ron and Hermione’s sofa was comfortable. It really was. He couldn’t blame a bad mattress or not enough blankets for his sudden insomnia. He got up when he heard someone in the kitchen. Ron’s borrowed pyjamas pooled around his feet as he walked- he hadn’t bothered to transfigure them into his own size. 

In the kitchen, Hermione was pouring milk into a pan. “Want some hot chocolate?” she asked, smiling at him over her shoulder. 

“Please.”

He pulled out a seat at the kitchen table, watching Hermione as she added sugar and cocoa to the milk. She had to reach over her round belly to stir. She seemed to sense his eyes on her. “This baby likes to turn somersaults in the middle of the night,” she said. “Ron says it’s going to be a seeker, but I think it’s more likely a beater if the punches and kicks are anything to go by. Possibly a boxer, to be honest. A warm drink tends to put them to sleep.” She reached up to pull two mismatched mugs from the cupboard, carefully pouring the hot chocolate. 

She gave Harry the Mini Egg mug. Harry had the same mug at home- he and Hermione had made it a running tradition to give each other muggle easter eggs with novelty mugs since they’d left Hogwarts. She had the Smarties mug; the first one he’d bought her.

Draco liked to complain about the silly mugs. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Hermione asked with a kind smile. 

Harry shook his head. “Just kept thinking,” he said. “God, Hermione, I love him. I thought he loved me. How could he do this to me? Couldn’t he have done me the credit of telling me, not going behind my back?”

“Are you talking about him sleeping with someone else, or wearing women’s things?” 

“Cheating, of course!” Harry didn’t think that needed asking. 

“Say he had come to you and said he wanted to wear women’s clothes- what would you have done?” Hermione pressed. 

“I don’t know!” 

Hermione blew on her hot chocolate, then took a careful sip. “Maybe you should think about it before you talk to him,” she said. “You are going to talk to him?”

Harry shrugged. Over the last couple of hours, he’d run over imagined scenario after imagined scenario. Maybe he’d go home to find Draco in their bed with the witch. Maybe it would be better just to go back, gather up his stuff and leave...

His thoughts were interrupted by Hermione. “Would you really mind if he was into it?” she asked. “I mean, it’s fine if it is a big deal to you, but is it a big enough deal to end the relationship?”

“You seem so sure he’s telling the truth,” Harry groused.

“I think you need to entertain the possibility,” Hermione told him. “Like I said before, Draco is quite feminine, as men go. Maybe they really are his. Maybe it’s something he likes.”

“Just because he cares about his hair doesn’t mean he’s not a bloke,” Harry riposted. “He’s definitely a bloke, Hermione. I’ve seen the bits to prove it.”

She snickered. “I didn’t say he wasn’t, and I don’t doubt you know it very well,” she said. “I’ve seen you two sneaking off before- I can’t believe how brazen you were about it at that ministry ball. You practically missed your speech.”

Harry felt his cheeks heat as he remembered. That had been the first function they’d attended as a couple, and they’d spent a happy half-hour in the storeroom behind the curtains. They could hear the chatter from the ballroom even as Harry had emptied himself into Draco’s delicious arse. He’d stumbled through his speech, half-hard again just thinking of his come still inside Draco. Luckily, he wasn’t known as much of a public speaker anyway, so he didn’t think anyone really noticed the difference

Draco always did prefer to be the receiving partner, Harry mused. He loved his long hair, his colourful, blousy shirts. The flowers he always bought for the kitchen windowsill… that hideous pink crup teddy that sat on his bedside table- Harry had won that for him when they went to the funfair. But that was just Draco, wasn’t it? Harry loved him for it, no matter how much he rolled his eyes when it took Draco forever to get ready to go out. And so what if Draco used hair removal potions to take away every last body hair, even though they were so pale you couldn’t see them except in the brightest sunlight? Harry had found that a bit odd at first, but now he’d just come to love it as one of Draco’s quirks. So what if Draco did like some things that might be stereotypically feminine? That was just Draco. He’d have told Harry if he was into women’s clothes, wouldn’t he. Wouldn’t he?

“I’m just saying,” Hermione mused, “that I don’t think it’s outwith the realms of possibility that he’s telling the truth.”

Harry considered Hermione’s words. Yes, he had to admit that he wouldn’t have been utterly surprised, or, to be honest, utterly against the idea, if Draco had told him that he liked to wear pretty, lacey women’s underthings.

But then, there were other considerations. Over the last year or so, Draco hadn’t wanted to make love with the lights on. Harry had given up trying. Shower sex hadn’t happened in a good while, even though they’d done it almost every day when they first moved in together. Harry had thought that maybe it was just them getting over the new relationship honeymoon phase. Maybe it was something else. Oh God, just how long had Draco been sleeping with someone else before Harry had noticed? Or was there something changed in Draco himself? 

Hermione finished her hot chocolate. “I’m going back to bed,” she said. “I think the little gymnast might actually sleep now.” She patted Harry’s hand again, just as she had in the pub. “We’re always here for you, Harry, no matter what happens, no matter what you need. We always will be.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, smiling through his distraction. “I’m going to stay up a bit longer if that’s okay?”

“Do whatever you like,” Hermione said, putting her mug in the sink. “You know your way around the kitchen if you want anything.”

Harry sat in the quiet of Ron and Hermione’s kitchen a while more before he couldn’t bear it any longer. Torturing himself wasn’t helping anything. He had to know.

He returned the bed to a sofa, leaving the blankets, pillows and pyjamas folded on the end. He pulled a sheet of notepaper off the pad by the phone and scrawled a note to leave on top. 

_Gone home. Thanks. I’ll visit again soon. Harry._

***

Draco was fast asleep on their sofa when he let himself into the flat. The fire had died to embers, but the streetlamp outside let in enough light for Harry to see the tracks of dried tears down Draco’s cheeks, his closed eyes swollen. His hair was in disarray, tangled around his head instead of pulled back in the neat braid he usually slept in. He was still in his work clothes. 

Overcome by an unexpected moment of tenderness, Harry pulled one of the blankets Molly Weasley had knitted for him from over the back of the sofa and tucked it around Draco’s sleeping form. Draco started. “Harry?” he muttered sleepily. 

“Yeah. Go back to sleep.”

Draco struggled against the blanket Harry had just tucked around him, clumsily sitting up. “No. Harry. I’m sorry.” His voice was heavy and slow with sleep. “I should have told you. I’m sorry. I understand if you want to...”

Harry sighed. “Go to bed, Draco. We can talk tomorrow.”

“No… talk now,” Draco mumbled, his eyes sliding shut again. His head slumped forward. “Just… need to wake up…”

“Bed,” Harry said firmly. He had no idea what came over him, but he bent to scoop up Draco, blanket and all, and carried him through to the bedroom. He wouldn’t have been able to lift Draco before Auror training, but he’d done enough weight training now that carrying an extra person was no big deal. Draco clung to his neck, burying his head into Harry’s shoulder.

Draco was fast asleep again by the time Harry had changed into pyjamas and climbed in beside fully-clothed Draco. Within moments, Draco had curled against his side like a heat-seeking missile, pressing icy feet against Harry’s calf. Draco’s feet were always freezing. He muttered something. “Hmm?” Harry asked, not able to make it out. 

“-wanna be a girl,” Draco repeated.

“What did you say?” Harry asked, sure he’d misheard. But Draco was asleep again, his arms locked around Harry’s own arm. 

Harry decided he must have misheard. 

***

Harry didn’t think he’d sleep, but he was lulled by Draco’s deep, even breaths beside him. When he opened his eyes, sunlight showed around the edges of the curtains, and Draco was nowhere to be seen. Luckily, it wasn’t hard to track him down. Harry followed the smell of coffee and bacon to the kitchen. 

He didn’t notice Harry standing in the doorway straight away, so Harry had a few moments to observe. Draco looked terrible. He still wore yesterday’s clothes, and his eyes were still red and swollen, his alabaster skin waxy and sallow. He slumped over the frying pan, watching the bacon sizzle.

“Morning,” Harry said quietly.

Draco jumped, his hand setting the frying pan rattling across the hob. “Careful!” Harry admonished, already rushing forwards to turn off the gas before Draco could burn himself or set fire to his sleeve. Draco stared at him, his expression wary as if he was waiting for Harry to vanish at any moment. Vanish, or possibly attack him. “So,” Harry said. “We should talk.”

Draco let out a long breath. “Yes,” he agreed. 

With quick movements, Harry scooped the bacon out of the pan and into two sandwiches. The plates clattered as he set them on the table; Draco had barely moved. “Sit down,” Harry said, his voice sounding gruff in his own ears.

Draco sat.

Harry tried to eat some of his bacon sandwich. The bread felt like cotton-wool in his mouth, the bacon like greasy string. He gulped a mouthful of coffee to try to wash it down; he burnt his tongue. “Fuck,” he swore. 

Draco flinched. 

Harry gave up on breakfast. “Where are the… the things?” he asked, not really sure what to call the underwear.

“I burnt them.” Draco’s voice was small, each word sounding like a question. His shoulders hunched in on themselves as he studied the table.

Oh. Harry hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

“Should have done it months ago,” Draco muttered. “I should never have bought them. I’m sorry.” 

Harry reached over the table to grip Draco’s chin firmly in his hand. He forced Draco to look at him, his eyes searching his boyfriend’s. “Did you sleep with someone else?” he asked roughly. 

Draco tried to shake his head, but Harry’s grip was too strong. Tears were threatening at the edges of his eyes again. “No,” he whispered. “I’d never… I only want…”

“Why did you have them, then?” Harry asked. “You like to wear women’s underwear?”

Draco had never been able to hide blushes. It was one of the things Harry loved, and, he realised now, that he’d missed the most. In the dark, he couldn’t see the crimson spread across Draco’s cheeks when Harry hissed dirty words into his ear. Now, though, Draco wrenched his face away from Harry’s hand, turning his cheek to try to hide his flushed face. “I wore them a couple of times.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry asked.

Draco shrugged his hunched shoulders. “Thought you wouldn’t like it,” he muttered. “It doesn’t matter. They’re gone now.”

Harry was silent for long moments. Draco pushed away his plate. “I’m going for a shower,” he said. 

Alone in the kitchen, Harry worked to get himself under control. His eyes fixed unseeing on the abandoned sandwiches, the full coffee cups on the table as he turned the new information over in his head. By the time Draco finished in the shower and returned to the bedroom, a towel wrapped under his arms, Harry was sitting cross-legged on the bed. “We can get more,” he said to Draco’s back.

Draco froze, bent over to retrieve his (very male-presenting) boxers from his drawer. “What?”

“We can buy more,” Harry repeated patiently. “From wherever you got them. It’s Saturday: maybe we could go out into muggle London. No one would know us there, so we can buy what we like.”

Draco was still frozen in place. “You… want to buy more?”

“Yeah. If it makes you happy, then yeah. I don’t care what you wear, Draco. If you want to wear a spacesuit, I don’t mind. You can wear whatever you like.”

Draco sat on the edge of the bed, his back to Harry. His long blond hair was still wet, plastered against his back. “It’s… it’s not just the clothes,” he said, his voice very small. “I mean… I did wear those, a couple of times. But I hated how I looked in them.” 

“So we can get you some you like better. If you want.” Harry’s light tone belied his fear; at any moment, he was waiting for Draco to confess that actually, those things had belonged to some witch he’d shagged, and that this was all a cover-up. But Harry was determined to call his bluff. If he had cheated, well then, Harry would go along with the cover story and see how far it went. See if Draco really would get done up in suspenders and a bra. And still Draco’s words last night niggled in his brain- had he really said that he wanted to be a girl, or had Harry misheard? Was it just nonsense sleep talk?

Draco had tipped his head back to look at the uninspiring white ceiling. “Knickers don’t fit right when you have a penis,” he said, his voice quiet. “Bras don’t fit right when you don’t have breasts to put in them.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Harry said. “What do you mean?”

Draco cringed in on himself, waiting for the inevitable explosion. “I want to be a woman. I don’t just want to wear the clothes- I want to actually be a woman.”

“Oh.”

Silence stretched on for long moments. Draco wondered if Harry was waiting for him to say more, but somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to. He waited for Harry to tell him to pack his things and go. Harry struggled to get his thoughts in order. Eventually, he asked, “Since when?”

“Since forever,” Draco admitted. “I went to see a healer about it, a few years ago. Just before we, well, got together. To see if I could change. Or if she could make it stop.”

“Why did you never tell me?” Harry asked. He reached out to touch Draco’s damp shoulder. “You never said anything.”

Draco flinched away from the touch. “You wanted me as a man.”

“I wanted you as _you_ , Draco.” Harry didn’t doubt Draco anymore. There was no way anyone would go to these lengths to cover up an infidelity, and if nothing else, Draco’s utter despondence confirmed it. “I wish you could have told me.” He sighed. “I suppose that’s why you don’t like me looking at you?”

“I hate my body.”

“So, what did the healer say?” Harry wanted to know.

“They can’t make me forget it, not without serious brain damage. And changing… it takes a long time. Years. Lots of potions. And when you invited me out for dinner… then when we came back here, and went to bed… I thought having you was more important. I thought having you would be enough to make it not matter.”

“Oh, love,” Harry sighed. He shuffled along the bed until he was behind Draco, pulling him back against his chest and kissing his temple. Draco sagged back against him as if all his bones had been vanished. Then the tears came, great wracking sobs that eventually gave way to hiccoughing little cries. Harry pulled Draco into his lap and rocked, shushing with nonsense noises. He kissed Draco’s head again and again, smoothed the wet blonde hair away from Draco’s scarlet face as he sopped up the tears with the edge of a blanket.

Draco clung to him like he was drowning.

The sun was higher in the sky when Harry asked the question he had been thinking of as he held Draco. “What should I call you?” he asked.

Draco looked up in surprise. “What?” His voice was rough from tears. 

“What should I call you?” Harry repeated. “Do you have a girl’s name you’d prefer? And shall I use ‘she’ and ‘her’ instead of ‘he’ and ‘him’? I don’t know how to do any of this, love. You’re going to have to help me.”

Draco turned red eyes up to look at Harry. “You’d do that? You still want me?”

Harry frowned. “Of course I do. I love you. I want you to be happy, and you’re hardly going to be happy if I’m calling you something you’re not.”

That prompted another round of tears, though Draco smiled through this one. 

“I… I think I still just want to be called Draco. I’ve always been Draco. It’s not too masculine… or do you think it is?”

“I think it’s a lovely name,” Harry said. “You can be called whatever you like. But you do want to be ‘she’, not ‘he’?”

Dumbly, Draco nodded. 

“Alright, love.” Herry moved one of his hands to cradle the back of Draco’s head and brushed a kiss across her lips. “If I get it wrong, if I get anything wrong, please tell me? Thwack me over the head or something. I wish you could have told me years ago. I’m sorry for not knowing.”

“I tried really hard to hide it,” Draco whispered. 

“Please don’t hide anything else?” Harry asked. “I want to know. I love you, Draco, no matter what you look like. I didn’t fall in love with a penis, I fell in love with you.”

***

They went out for lunch. Draco had used the last of the bread for their abandoned breakfast, and neither of them wanted to countenance cold bacon sandwiches. So, hand in hand, they ventured out into muggle London. Draco had had to use glamors to hide her puffy eyes, but she smiled broadly as they wandered down the road to a favourite cafe. 

The muggles didn’t notice the subtle notice-me-not spell Harry cast, nor the _muffliatio_ , but Draco did. “So,” Harry asked, spearing a grilled tomato, “will you go back to the healer?”

“Hmm?” Draco was deep in concentration as she ensured the perfect ratio of brown sauce to chips. “What healer?”

“About the potions,” Harry clarified with a vague wave of his fork at Draco. “About, I don’t know, growing girl parts or whatever they do. What do they do?”

Draco flushed a delicate pink, making Harry smile. He reached across the table to brush her cheek. “I love it when you blush,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse.

That just made Draco blush more. “They suppress male essences,” she said quietly. “And they have female ones in them.”

“So, do your bits turn inside out, or what?” Harry asked. He pretended to be very interested in his fried egg. “Sorry, that sounded a bit crass. I’ve just never even thought about this stuff before.”

“No,” Draco said softly. “The potions just affect stuff like stopping body hair growing, changing the shape of your body a bit. They make you look more like a woman… but they don’t just magically put you in a woman’s body. It’s an approximation.”

“That’s a bit rubbish,” Harry said, looking up to see Draco’s sad eyes. “Why do we even have magic if we can’t use it for stuff like that? If we can have polyjuice, why can’t we have something that makes you look exactly how you want?”

Draco shrugged. “It doesn’t work like that, I suppose. That would be too easy.”

Harry reached across the toast rack to squeeze her hand. “I wish it did,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes. “Something in your life should be easy. I don’t want you to hide anymore. I want to be able to make love to you with the curtains open and the sun streaming in, and I don’t want you to be embarrassed. I want you to feel beautiful.”

“Harry!” Draco protested, glancing around. “We’re in public!”

“They aren’t paying attention,” Harry said. “We’re just that couple that comes in every few weeks. We’re not interesting any more.”

“Only because you spelled them!” Draco snorted out a choked laugh. “Doesn’t that sort of behaviour get you in trouble when you’re off-duty, Auror Potter?”

Harry just smirked, raising Draco’s hand to kiss it. “Aurors are never really off duty,” he reminded Draco. “After we’ve eaten, we should go shopping.”

“Yeah. There’s no food left in the flat,” Draco agreed.

“No, not that kind of shopping. Shopping for you. For clothes. Whatever you want.”

Draco stared at Harry, who shamelessly stole one of Draco’s chips. “I’m still waiting for you to panic and run,” she said. “You’re… you’re being too calm.”

“I don’t feel it,” Harry admitted. “I’m so scared I’m going to say something wrong and upset you again. I’m sorry, by the way, for thinking that you were sleeping with someone else.”

“You should be horrified at all this,” Draco insisted. 

“Oh, I suspect I’ll be discussing it at length with Jane,” Harry said mildly. “But I’m not horrified.” Draco tried not to feel discomforted at that- she should have expected it. Jane was Harry’s counsellor- it might have taken two years after the War for Hermione to cajole him into talking to a professional instead of trying to find solace in a firewhiskey bottle, but now he wouldn’t give up his sessions with her for anything. They’d gone from weekly to fortnightly to monthly in the intervening years, but his therapy afternoon was block-booked in his calendar at work. If there was ever a time Auror Potter was truly off duty, it was when he was in Jane’s cosy office. “Look,” Harry said. “I think you should make another appointment with the healer. I’d like to come with you, if I can. Maybe things have changed in the last few years- maybe there are better potions now.”

“Maybe,” Draco said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

After they’d eaten, Harry persuaded Draco to go shopping, though she insisted on apparating out to Camden to make sure they wouldn’t run into anyone they knew. Draco refused to try anything on, but blushing, picked out another set of underwear like the one she’d burnt. Harry bought it, and three more in different colours. “You look amazing in blue,” he said to quiet Draco’s protestations. He snuck in a pair of pale pink socks with crup puppies gambolling about on them at the till. He thought Draco might think they were funny.

Draco charmed the bag so the name of the shop didn’t show as they wandered Camden Market. They’d always liked it here- Harry had thought it was because they certainly weren’t the only gay couple there, but now he wondered if Draco had liked seeing people who might have been male, but might have been female too. You got all kinds of people in Camden Market. 

Draco tucked her hand into the crook of Harry’s arm as they wandered the stalls. She didn’t try to hide her grin. She thought that this was possibly the happiest she’d been in years- _she_! She’d always avoided using that term in her head, forcibly turning her internal monologue to male pronouns, male terms. She’d always been far too afraid that she’d slip up, somehow out herself. 

A niggle in her mind told her that this couldn’t actually be real. At any moment, Harry would announce his disgust and go, her brain told her. 

She was jolted out of her reverie when Harry tugged on her hand. “What do you think?” he asked, and she realised he’d pulled her over to a stall. He was holding out a gaudy pink and turquoise peasant skirt. 

Draco arched an eyebrow. “It’s hideous,” she said. 

“Well, what about this one?” Harry persisted, swapping it for one in black with huge white flowers. 

“For what, clothing a house elf?”

“You’re no fun,” Harry grumbled, his tone good natured. “I want to buy you something. Something you’ll like.” 

Holding up the bag hanging from her wrist, Draco arched an eyebrow. “You already have.”

Harry wasn’t deterred. He ventured further into the stall, flicking through the racks of brightly coloured skirts and sundresses. He held up a pale blue, frilly sundress. Draco rolled her eyes, though something in her really wanted that sundress. She let him continue his doomed quest whilst she eyed up a rack of beaded bracelets. She shuddered to imagine what her parents would have had to say about any of this tat. 

“Here. This one,” Harry said. She turned back towards him to find him holding up a silvery-grey skirt in some sort of silky, flowing fabric. “It matches your eyes,” Harry said, and Draco thought she could detect just a hint of shyness in his voice. 

She didn’t have the heart to deny him. “Fine,” she teased, rolling her eyes again. “You can wear a skirt the colour of my eyes if you insist.” 

His gaze flicked up over her shoulder and she knew that he’d spotted what she’d already known- the shopkeeper was now watching them with mild interest. “I think it’ll look excellent on me,” he declared, picking up on her discomfort at being watched so publically. “How much for this skirt, please?”

***

  
  


She didn’t want to disappoint him. He was so sweetly excited about their purchases. “I want to see,” he told her. “Please, don’t be shy. I want to see what you look like in them.” He held out the sky blue underwear set he’d liked so much, his green eyes wide and pleading. 

She faced away from the full length mirror as she stripped out of her clothes, shedding trousers and shirt and boxers and socks in a pile. When she reached for them, the silk of the knickers felt almost illicit beneath her fingertips. She was shaking as she pulled them on, trying not to fall over as she hooked them round one large foot, then another. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see her big, male body against the delicate scrap of clothing, and so she wouldn’t have to see Harry, watching her. She could still feel his eyes on her. 

Awkwardly, she tucked her penis back between her legs, but the narrow gusset of the knickers couldn’t hope to contain both it and the testes that went with it. Giving up on that lost cause, she reached for the bra, squinting her eyes open to find it on the bed. It was the smallest cup size they’d had available. She knew from his last foray into bra-shopping that even her narrow chest was large for a typical woman, which made it harder to find anything to fit. 

The soft cups sat empty on her chest, the fabric tenting up over her nipples. She squinted down at her chest and promptly shut her eyes again. “It looks stupid.”

“No, you don’t,” Harry said softly. She heard the blankets rustle as he got up from his perch on the bed. His hands settled on her waist. “You look lovely.”

She gestured at the empty cups of the bra, her face twisting. “What’s the point?” she asked. “I don’t have anything to put in this.” 

Harry tipped her face up, pulling her out of her hunch and brushed a kiss over her lips. She opened her eyes as he pulled away, letting herself get lost in the greenness of his gaze instead of thinking about her body, with all the wrong parts in all the wrong places. “May I try something?” he asked. 

Mutely, she nodded. 

She had a little moment of fear when Harry pulled out his wand and aimed it at her. Her nerves were jangled from the events of the last twenty-four hours, and anyway, no matter how comfortable you might be with someone, being at immediate wandpoint was scary.

She gasped as blood was drawn to her chest at the moment Harry whispered “ _Engorgio_.” Her skin felt tight, stretched. He repeated the spell again on the other side. 

The press of the fabric on the over-sensitised skin was almost too much- just below the edge of pain, but somehow delicious too. She peered down to see that the cups of the bra no longer hung empty, but filled with swollen flesh. Her swollen flesh. 

“Is that okay?” Harry asked, barely above a whisper. 

She brought her hands up to cup her temporary breasts. “Yes,” she whispered back. 

His thumb was gentle as he brushed it against the flesh at the top edge of the cup, but she gasped anyway, the contact sending little shockwaves into her. He pulled away. 

“More,” she said, reaching for his hand to bring it back to her breast. “Just… gentle. It’s sensitive.”

“It won’t last long,” he said by way of apology. His fingertips danced lightly over her chest, then, carefully, he dipped one below the edge of the cup to graze against her nipple. She groaned low in her throat, and then Harry’s hands had reached behind her, undoing the clasp of the bra and letting it fall to the ground. “As pretty as that is, I will always prefer you naked,” he told her. Pressing her back until her knees hit the edge of the bed, he tumbled her onto it, branching himself on his arms above her. His dark head dipped, his tongue laving gently over her engorged nipple. It sent a clenching need straight into her belly even as she hissed through her teeth.

Her cock spang free of its confines, the little knickers unable to contain it as it too engorged with blood. She canted up her hips to yank them off, the elastic digging uncomfortably into her rapidly growing erection. Her hand brushed against the placket of Harry’s trousers, where his own erection strained against the fabric. “Fuck, Draco,” Harry said hoarsely. “I really, really want to fuck you.”

“Then get on with it,” Draco’s gasp drew out into a long moan as Harry cupped his hand over a breast. Clumsily, she reached for her wand to close the curtains, plunging them into murky twilight.

  
  


***

Some time later, both of them content and replete, Draco lay in Harry’s arms as he traced lazy patterns across her side. She swatted his hand away as he ventured too far onto her ribs and tickled. “That was amazing,” Harry mumbled into her hair. 

She hummed in agreement. She hoped he’d be up for using the engorgement charms again in the future. She’d liked it.

“Draco,” he said carefully after another few minutes of comfortable silence, “what changed?”

She rolled onto her back and stretched. “What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t always like this- sex in the dark with the curtains shut. We used to get it on anywhere, anytime. Sex with the curtains open. Sex in the shower. Sex in the storeroom at the Ministry. But then, you stopped wanting to. Why?”

A shrug rippled through Draco’s shoulders. “I didn’t want to think about my body. Didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want you to see it. ”

“But you used to not mind so much?”

“I suppose it crept up on me. And, well, then I kept getting reminded that I was a man.”

“By what?” Harry wanted to know. 

Draco’s hands traced out a shape in the air above her flat stomach, almost unconsciously. Harry recognised it as an approximation of a pregnant woman’s shape. “Hermione getting pregnant?” he guessed. 

Draco hitched one shoulder in a shrug. “Yeah. And some people at work too. The things that their bodies could do that mine was too useless for. Mother wrote to me about a year ago, telling me I needed to settle down and get married so I could have an heir.”

“Do your parents know?” Harry asked. He knew that they didn’t know Draco was with him, but did they know that their son should have been a daughter? 

“Father doesn’t. He’s not getting out of Azkaban anyway, so it hardly matters.”

“But your mother?” 

“I tried to tell her once,” Draco said. “I was little- maybe twelve? Pansy had just had her first monthly. God, I was jealous. She got to have the pretty clothes, then she got to be this amazing fertile being. She could make life. All I made was trouble.”

“What did your mother say?”

Draco rolled to her side again, tucking her head onto Harry’s shoulder and breathing in the scent of him. “That it was a phase.”

“You should tell her.”

Draco shook her head as best as she was able against Harry’s shoulder. “She doesn’t care. Not really. She has her life in France now. I haven’t even seen her in what, a year? More? She won’t care.”

It took a long time for Harry to work up the courage to ask his next question. It had been bothering him for months- if truth be told, ever since Ron and Hermione had told him that they’d be having a baby. “Do you want kids?”

“Yeah,” Draco said softly. She stared into space, her eyes fixed on the wardrobe but her vision somewhere else entirely. “But I can’t have them. There’s no way for me to carry them- I don’t have the right organs.”

“We can adopt,” Harry said, kissing Draco’s hairline and being rewarded by her tipping her head up so she could see him. “I always thought I might like to adopt a kid or two. Give them a good childhood. Better than I had.”

Draco didn’t make any attempt to mince her words. “Maybe,” she said. “But it’d be hard enough to convince them to give a baby to a gay couple. What about a couple where the mother has a cock?” 

“What’s fame for, if not for making people bend the rules?” Harry asked.

“Fame’s gone to your head,” Draco grumbled, sitting up. “Eurgh. I need to shower.”

Harry propped himself up on one elbow, watching her get up. “I think you should tell people,” he said. 

“I did. I told you.”

“Other people.” He watched Draco pick up the underwear she’d discarded. “How about Ron and Hermione? I told them about our fight last night- I think they’d like to know what happened.”

“Of course you told the Weasel,” Draco snapped, venom dripping from her words. “And I’m sure he’d be delighted to find out that I’m broken.”

“Hey!” Harry scrambled to his feet, pulling her into his chest. Her skin was cool and smooth against him. “Stop that! You’re not broken. And Ron won’t be nasty.”

“Oh, how do you know?” Draco said, but the malice was gone. She didn’t fight Harry, letting him hold her. 

“Please,” he murmured into her hair.

She turned in his arms, bowing her head to rest it on his shoulder. “Oh, fine,” she said. “Just to make you happy.”

***

Harry didn’t want to give Draco time to change her mind. Whilst she was in the shower, Harry flooed Ron and Hermione. Hermione answered, kneeling awkwardly in front of the fireplace that currently housed Harry’s head. “Harry!” she cried. “How are you? What happened with Draco?”

“You were right,” he admitted. “Draco wasn’t cheating.”

Hermione smirked a little, just the way she always did when she was right. Ron called it her ‘cat with the cream face’. “I knew it!” she crowed. “I knew he wouldn’t cheat on you!”

“Yeah. Look- do you and Ron want to come for tea?” he asked. 

“Ron,” Hermione called over her shoulder, “do you want to go to Harry’s for tea?”

Ron called back something incomprehensible. “I think that was a yes,” Hermione said. “What time.”

Harry rolled his eyes up to glance at the clock on Hermione and Ron’s living room wall. “Half six?” he suggested. “Is Indian okay? I don’t think we actually have any food in.”

Hermione let out a sigh. “Honestly, Harry, how do you two actually function? We’ll see you at half six. And we’ll bring the food. You always get the spicy stuff, and the baby’s not keen.”

He grinned. “Thanks, ‘Mione. You’re the best.”

When he pulled his head from the fire, Draco was sitting on the sofa, idly casting drying charms on her hair. “Weasley?” she asked. 

“Hermione. They’re coming over in an hour. They’re bringing dinner.”

Draco’s eyes widened. “Tonight?” she breathed. “Harry!”

“What?” he asked. “You said you’d tell them. Why bother waiting?”

She glared at him. “I need to get dressed.”

He followed her to the bedroom, leaning against the door frame as she shoved her new underwear back into the bag and thrust the bag under her side of the bed. She pulled out a fresh pair of boxers and grimaced at them. “You can wear the pretty stuff if you like,” Harry said softly. “You could wear the skirt too, if you wanted. They won’t mind.” 

Draco looked up at him. “I don’t think I’m ready to let other people see me in girl clothes,” she admitted quietly.

Harry shrugged a shoulder. “That’s okay. But they’d be okay with it too. I’d better go and clean up the breakfast dishes before Hermione declares us both slobs and says we can’t be trusted not to poison ourselves.”

As the clock crept closer to six thirty, Draco hummed with nervous energy. She kept leaping up to pace the room, casting her book aside. Even when she was sitting looking at it, she didn’t turn the pages. Her eyes kept skimming over the same paragraph, unable to take in the words. Harry pretended to watch television, but if he’d been asked the plot of the murder mystery, he couldn’t have answered. He kept an eye on Draco as she flinched with every crackle of the fire. 

As it happened, Ron and Hermione arrived by way of the front door and not the floo. Ron bore an armful of plastic bags stuffed with takeaway containers. “Don’t worry,” he said by way of greeting, “I didn’t let Hermione just pick korma and butter chicken. There’s some actual curry in there too.”

He dug into his meal with gusto, piling his plate high. A few mouthfuls in, he glanced around the table. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked his dinner companions. “Are none of you going to eat?”

“Just because some of us actually have table manners,” Draco muttered darkly as she pushed some curry around her plate with a piece of naan.

Harry kicked her under the table. “Draco’s a bit nervous,” he explained. “She’s got something she wants to say, but she’s scared you might not be supportive.”

Neither Ron nor Hermione missed the pronouns. Ron went pale and dropped his fork. Hermione took a delicate bite of korma, her eyes fixed on Draco. Neither said anything. “Draco?” Harry prompted.

“They’re your friends,” Draco mumbled in the general direction of her plate. “Why don’t you tell them?”

“I think we’ve got a pretty good idea already, Draco,” Hermione said kindly. “It’s okay. You can tell us.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Can I still call you Draco?” she asked. “Would you prefer a different name?”

“Draco’s fine,” Draco said, glancing up at Hermione, and apparently liking what she saw in her face. 

“Can somebody explain what the bloody hell’s going on for muggins here?” Ron asked. “Because I think I might know, but I can’t wrap my brain around it.”

“I think,” Hermione said, “that Draco’s trying to tell us that she’s going to be a woman from now on, and she’d like you to refer to her as one.”

“Okay, that’s what I thought.” Ron frowned. “Merlin’s balls, that’s bloody mental.” He took another shovelling mouthful of curry, deep in thought as he masticated. “Does that mean you’ve got a cock or a pussy?”

Harry and Hermione both whacked at his head, each getting an ear. Draco put her head down on her folded arms and howled with laughter. 

***

A week later, Harry and Draco sat nervously in matching chairs in front of the healer’s desk, in her office on the 18th floor of St. Mungo’s.

“It’s a multi-stage process,” Healer Bewick told them, her flinty eyes fixed on Draco. “It’s not something to be taken lightly. First, you have to prove that you can live as your preferred gender. You should wear female clothes, go by a female name. Your family and friends must accept you as female. If, after a year dressing and acting as a woman, you still want to continue, then we will provide you with potions that will suppress your male hormones and mimic female ones. At that point, you’d start to see changes in your body- you won’t grow facial hair, there will be a redistribution of fat into breasts and hips. Your voice might lighten a little.”

Harry interrupted. “Shouldn’t the potions come first?” he wanted to know. “Wouldn’t it be easier to live as a woman if you look like one?”

Healer Bewick looked at him over the edge of her spectacles, reminding Harry strongly of Madam Pince. “This is not a process to be taken lightly, Mr. Potter. Some of the changes wrought by these potions are irreversible. It must be taken slowly, to give enough time to allow the patient enough time to change his or her mind before things become permanent. After a while on the potions- anywhere from six months to two or three years, depending- then we can talk about more permanent changes like breast augmentation and changing the appearance of genitals.”

“Appearance?” Harry cut in again. Draco was glaring at him, and Harry could practically see the ‘be quiet’ thoughts rolling off her, but he ignored them. “What about changing entirely? Is there any way to do that? What if Draco wanted to have children?”

“No, Mr. Potter,” Healer Bewick said baldly. “Not even magic can manage that.”

“But things might change, right? Maybe in a year or two, there might be new breakthroughs?”

The healer’s mouth tightened like she was sucking on lemons. “Unlikely. In any case, that’s a conversation for a long time in the future. If Mr Malfoy can manage to live as a woman- and that’s an if, not a when- we can discuss the next steps.”

The healer calling Draco ‘Mr Mafloy’ grated on Harry. He stood. “Thank you,” he said, forcing the words through gritted teeth. “Come on, Draco. We need to think about this.”

Healer Bewick stood too. She held out her hand. “Of course. Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy…” Harry ignored her outstretched hand, all but pulling Draco from the room. 

“Harry…” Draco panted, struggling to keep up with Harry’s strides as he hurried down the corridor. “Harry, shouldn’t we-”

Harry wheeled to face Draco, taking her by the shoulders. “She shouldn’t have called you Mr,” Harry told her. “That’s not right.”

“It’s what everyone’s always called me,” Draco said. 

“They shouldn’t. Not when they know.” Harry rubbed his face, then glanced around at the empty corridor, making sure no-one was around to witness their conversation. “You need a different healer,” he said flatly. “You need one that has some respect for you.”

“That’s the only one at St. Mungos who deals in this,” Draco pointed out.

“We’ll find you a different one.”

  
  


***

The healer Harry found was an American. He arrived by international portkey three days later. “God, Harry, the cost!” Draco hissed as they made the man coffee in their kitchen whilst the healer waited in the living room.

“Don’t worry about the cost,” Harry said.

“But I don’t have the money for it! The Malfoy fortune was seized!”

“The Potter one wasn’t.” Harry put the milk bottle on the coffee tray. “Let me do this for you, love.”

“I shouldn’t…”

“You should,” Harry said, grabbing Draco and pulling her head down so he could kiss her crown. “I want to. Come on, the healer’s waiting.”

Healer Jack (“Oh, no, first name terms! None of that stuffy ‘Healer Jenkins’ nonsense.”) listened as Draco haltingly explained her predicament. He asked questions, so many questions, and Draco forced herself to answer them even when they seemed irrelevant. How long had she felt like she was a woman? What was her childhood like? How did she feel about the war? Did she have women’s clothes? Did she ever wear them? Just inside the flat, or outside too? What about her name- was that the same name she’d always had?

After a while, Jack sat back against the armchair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He steepled his fingers in front of his lips and just looked at Draco for so long that she started to squirm. “I’d like to do a mind scan,” he said.

“A mind scan?” Draco asked, her voice squeaking embarrassingly. 

“Yeah. It’s like legilimency, but more general. I’d like to see where your head’s at.”

Draco licked suddenly dry lips. “Okay,” she agreed. “When?”

“No time like the present,” Jack told her cheerfully. “You go ahead and lie down on that sofa and get comfy. It’ll feel weird, but remember; I’m a healer, and I’m bound by my vows not to tell anyone about what I might see in your head. Between you and me, alright?”

“And Harry.”

“Nope, not even Harry,” the healer said. “Just us.”

Harry was secretly very impressed when Draco agreed to the mind scan. He found it hard enough to talk about what was in his head with Jane, and that was just talking, not showing. It had taken months for him to feel comfortable enough with her to really open up, and here Draco was willing to let someone she’d just met into her head. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” he said, feeling like this probably wasn’t something he should be here for.

Draco grabbed his hand. “No,” she said. “Stay. Please.”

He couldn’t say no to her pleading eyes. 

She put her head down on his lap and stretched her legs across the remainder of the sofa. Her sock-clad feet hung off the end. She was wearing the socks with crups on them. He smiled. His fingers petted at her soft hair. “Alright,” Jack said, his voice low and soft. “Just relax now. Try not to fight me.” He put the tip of his wand to Draco’s temple.

Draco took in a sharp breath, her nose wrinkling, then made a conscious effort to relax. 

The mind scan took only a couple of minutes. “All done,” Jack said quietly as he took his wand away. “You just sit up when you’re feeling up to it.”

Draco’s movements were uncoordinated and sleepy as she pressed herself back up to a sitting position. She slumped bonelessly against Harry’s side. “So?” she asked. “Am I mad?”

Jack laughed. “No, Draco. Not mad at all. I can see that this ain’t just some passing fancy, too.” He fiddled idly with his wand, drumming it off his knee. “I’ll need to get a few calculations done- I’ll need your weight and height and so forth. I’ll need a blood sample- and I’ll need to see you at least every month to begin with to check that the dosages are right, but I reckon I could have a supply of essence potions with you by next week.”

“Next week?” Draco squeaked, unable to contain her excitement. Harry felt a broad grin plaster across his own face. He squeezed Draco’s hand tight. She’d have what she wanted.

“Sure. I don’t see much point in waiting about for you to get used to being called a woman first; your mind’s pretty clear. Now, it’s still not a quick process,” Jack warned. “It’s not an overnight thing. Might be a year or two before you’re happy with what you look like, and there are some things we can’t ever change- you’re always going to be tall- but it’s a start.”

“I just want to be able to look in a mirror without hating what I see,” Draco muttered.

Harry decided to be blunt. “What about having children?” he asked. “Will she ever be able to have her own children, carry them?”

“No, Harry. Sorry. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but no. There’s no potion nor spell that can do what you ask and give someone reproductive organs. If it was, the infertile witches would be queuing ‘round the block for it.”

“Oh,” Harry looked disappointed, and Draco loved him for trying. “I’d hoped- you’re supposed to be the best.”

“Well, I’m honoured for the accolade.”

“Will anything be developed?” Harry pressed. “New spells and potions get made all the time. Why not something for this?”

Jack spread his hands. “Harry, Draco… you’ve gotta understand. This ain’t that common. There are only six healers in the world who’ll oversee this sort of thing, and we ain’t overrun. Most of them don’t specialise. Hestia Bewick- she’s a gynaecologist, a lady parts doctor. This ain’t her bread and butter. Only me and Healer Ashraf, in Pakistan, specialise completely. We don’t see no other patients except those that want to change their sex, but the other four? It’s just a sideline. There’s not the interest in research for new potions and spells.”

“But could there be?” Harry pressed. “What if there was funding for it?”

Draco put her hand on Harry’s arm. “No, Harry,” she said. “Stop. This… this is fine. It’s better than what I’d have had from Bewick. The world isn’t ready for the ‘Harry Potter charitable fund for transsexual research’.”

“It’s not right,” Harry muttered. “We have magic, we should be able to do this stuff. If we just tried harder...”

Jack squinted at Harry as if he was considering running a mind scan on him too. “I’ll let you in on a secret I don’t just tell to anybody, Harry.” He gestured to his own crotch. “There ain’t no cock in these pants. When I was born, they said I was a girl. If I could do a swap with Draco here, I would. You can’t say I ain’t invested.”

Harry and Draco both looked in surprise at the bearded man sitting in their living room. He grinned. “Didn’t expect that, did ya?” he asked. “I’ve been taking essence potions for, oh, nearly twenty years- I was a bit younger than Draco when I got my mitts on them.” His tone turned more serious. “There’s some surgeries we can do, to make an approximation of a vulva and vagina if you want it, Draco. No need to decide yet- there’s no expiry date on that offer, and maybe best to take it a bit slow, yeah?”

Draco nodded.

“There are side effects to the potions,” Jack warned. “I guess you know that already though, yeah?”

“A risk of blood clots,” Draco said quietly. “Possible drop in libido. And...” she trailed off.

“Yup,” Jack agreed. “You’ve done your homework. Has Harry?”

Harry flushed. He should have, he realised. He should have read up more on this. He probably should have asked Hermione for help finding information- he hadn’t the first clue where he would have looked. He shook his head. 

“First off, erectile dysfunction,” Jack said, holding up one finger. “Far be it from me to meddle in your sex life, but warned that it’s not unusual for someone to be unable to maintain an erection after they start with the potions. It’ll look a little different, down below, too. And fertility.” He raised a second finger “It sounds like you guys want kids?”

“Yes,” Harry said with a glance at Draco. Draco looked calm, so Harry figured she’d known this before. If she was fine with it, he was fine with it, he decided.

“If you want the option of having kids with Draco’s sperm, you’ll need to get that put under a stasis spell before you start the potions,” he warned. “I keep a facility for that at my clinic, if you want. I’d recommend it. You could always use a surrogate somewhere down the line.”

Draco nodded sharply, her cheeks stained pink. Harry spoke for her. “Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s a good idea.” Maybe they could figure something out. He hadn’t thought of a surrogate. Maybe they could have one kid with Draco’s sperm, and one with his. Maybe there was some way to mix them up, magically. 

Jack smiled at them. “Good plan. There are a few other possible side effects, but you’re healthy. I’m not expecting anything untoward. I’ve got a full list, I’ll leave it with you. Now, Draco, you’ve got a supportive partner, and that’s really important, but no one else knows yet, right?”

“A couple of Harry’s friends,” Draco whispered. 

“They took it well?”

“Surprisingly. I was expecting Weasley to explode.”

Harry kissed Draco’s head again. “They know it’s important,” he said. “Besides, Hermione would kill him if he was nasty, and she’s mean when she gets riled up right now.” He glanced at Jack. “Hermione’s pregnant. It’s made her short tempered. Not that she’ll believe it.”

Jack grinned. “Hormones. Nightmare.” He leaned down to take a stack of pamphlets from his satchel. “If you’re going to start taking the potions, you’ll need to tell people,” he told Draco. “People will notice the changes. Friends, family, work. I’ve got some stuff here with advice on how you might do it. Some people will be fine with it. Most won’t understand. Some will get angry. Be prepared for that. You might lose friendships, but you’ll find out who your true friends are.”

Draco swallowed hard.

“You scared?” Jack asked.

“Yes.”

“Perfectly normal,” he assured Draco. “Look, this is a lot to take in. If you give me the nod, I’ll get started on those potions. If you change your mind, you can floo me. You can always floo me if you want to talk about anything. I’ll come back with your first supply in a week. If you still want to go ahead, we’ll start there. I’ll check up on you in a week, check the dosages. If you’re steady on that dosage in a couple of weeks, we’ll push the checkups back to monthly. If you decide you don’t want to carry on- I don’t think you will, but if you do- you can come off the potions. No harm done.”

Draco gulped. “How much will this cost?” she asked.

Harry squeezed her hand. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ve already talked about that part. It’s covered.”

“You okay with that, Draco?” Jack asked.

Draco supposed she’d have to be. It was Harry all over. “I suppose so,” she said. She rolled up her sleeve. “Didn’t you say you needed blood?”

  
  


***

Harry went through to the kitchen as soon as he got in, shedding his robes on the sofa and his shirt on the kitchen threshold. He’d pulled down the box of healing supplies he kept in the top cupboard before he realised Draco was home and following him. “You’re hurt!” she said, spotting the clumsily applied dressing on his arm.

“Nothing bad,” he grunted, gingerly beginning to pull the dressing off and trying not to let the sticking charm take half of his arm hair with it. “Had a bit of a skirmish with some moonsugar dealers. Curse damage though, so it’s a bit slow to heal.”

Sure enough, blood was staining the field dressing, the healing spell he’d used unable to knit the wound. “You’re supposed to have healers for this sort of thing,” Draco admonished, taking over the removal. “This looks like Weasly just slapped it on in the heat of the moment.”

Harry hissed as the air hit the angry red slash on his forearm. “He did. No point bothering the healers. They can’t do anything. Not the first time I’ve had a cursed would, love. It’s not even that big. It’ll be gone in a day or two.” He used his uninjured hand to gather up the cleansing potion, uncorking it with his teeth and slopping it over his arm. The potion hissed and bubbled, burning away germs and impurities. 

It was only when Draco was carefully winding a bandage around Harry’s arm that Harry glanced at the clock and realised that it was far earlier than Draco would usually be home. “Why aren’t you at work?” he asked.

Draco finished off the bandage with a spell to weave the ends together. “I got fired,” she said quietly.

“What?” Harry upset the open bottle of cleaning potion when he started. Draco snatched it up before too much of the potion could escape, using the dishcloth to wipe up the spill. 

Draco’s tone was mocking as she answered.“‘This is a traditional newspaper with traditional values, Mr Malfoy,’" she parroted in a parody of the head clerk at the _Prophet_. “‘We cannot allow our employees to represent us by dressing for pantomime.’”

Harry took the potion bottle from Draco so he could grip her hands. “They fired you because you’re changing your sex?” 

Draco nodded. 

Harry’s lips compressed to a tight line. He carefully counted out five breaths before he said “Never mind, love.”

“Never mind?” Draco arched an eyebrow, but her voice trembled. “I should never have told them. I should have just carried on as I was!” She tried to stay calm, tried to control her emotions like she saw Harry do so often, but she couldn’t. For the third time that day, she broke down in tears.

“Oh, love,” Harry said, holding her tight. “Come on.

Ron found them on the sofa when he flooed in. “Oh!” he said. “Sorry. Just coming to check you were okay, Harry. I’ve put in the incident report.” He peered down at Draco, tear-stained and puffy-eyed. “Erm…” he said hesitantly. “Um, what’s wrong?”

Draco didn’t seem ready to answer. “Draco, love, can I tell him?”

“Yeah,” Draco said from the depths of Harry’s shirt.

“She told them at work,” Harry said. “About going on the essence potions, being a woman. They fired her.”

Ron didn’t say anything, and for a moment, Harry wondered if he’d actually spoken, or just thought he had. When Ron wheeled abruptly, Harry wondered if he’d offended Ron somehow. His friend stomped into the kitchen and began thumping about with the kettle.

A few minutes later, he slammed two mugs of tea down in front of Harry and Draco, hot tea slopping over the sides and onto the coffee table. “It should be bloody illegal. They can’t dictate what people are!”

“You… don’t think they should have fired me?” Draco asked cautiously. 

“No! Bloody hell, no. It’s got nothing to do with your work- last I checked, you could typeset just as well in a dress as in trousers,” Ron snapped. “You should bloody sue.”

Harry sighed in relief. He’d been worried when Ron had been so quiet.

“You can do better,” Ron said, flinging himself into the armchair. “You were too clever to be working for that rag anyway. You’ll get a better job.”

Draco fiddled with a loose thread on Harry’s sleeve. “Maybe. I thought you thought I was weird for this. You don’t even like me much.”

Ron glared at Draco. “What I like or think doesn’t matter. I have no problem with you. I don’t get it, but you make Harry happy, and that’s enough for me. What you do with your body is your business. Can’t see why anyone would want to be a woman, but you were always bloody weird anyway.”

Harry snorted. “Thanks, Ron.”

“Just the truth.” Ron paused, his mouth twitching as he thought. “You should talk to Hermione,” he said eventually. 

“About work?” Draco asked. “I can’t work at the Ministry- I’m barred.” It had been a condition of her release. Harry had spoken at her trial, after the war, and it was his testimony that kept her out of Azkaban. Nevertheless, she could never work at the Ministry. The job at the Prophet had been well below her academic ability, but it was a job. 

“No,” Ron said. “Just… about stuff. She always says the Department of Mysteries has the best library there is. If there’s anything about changing your, you know-” Ron blushed and gestured vaguely about his own body- “it’ll be there.”

***

Draco haunted the flat for a week, sending out letters of enquiry for any company she thought would be likely to hire her. The owl came back empty-clawed from every missive. 

She barely slept on Tuesday night. Tomorrow, Jack was coming back with her potions. By the time Harry pulled himself from bed on Wednesday morning, she’d cleaned the living room and kitchen (twice), and was making him a full English.

He clasped his arms around her waist as he rested his cheek against her shoulder. “Did you sleep at all?” 

“Not really,” she admitted. “How do you want your egg?”

An owl tapped against the windowpane “Fried, please,” Harry said as he went to let the bird in. It took wing again as soon as it had taken the owl treat from his hand. “Here,” he said, holding the folded parchment out to Draco. “It’s for you.”

Draco broke the seal and read it as Harry cracked two eggs into the pan. “It’s from George Weasley,” she said in surprise. She glared at Harry over the top of the parchment. “What did you say?”

“Nothing. Why? What does he want?” Harry asked. 

She pinned him with her gaze for a moment longer. “He’s offering me a job at his shop,” she said. “I didn’t write to him. How does he know I’m looking for a job?”

“I didn’t say anything to him,” Harry insisted. “Maybe it was Ron?”

“Maybe,” Draco said. She wished it hadn’t had to come down to Harry or his friends begging favours to get her work, but she probably couldn’t afford to be proud. She glanced over the letter again. George wrote that he couldn’t offer much to begin with, half days on the shop floor, but that they could see what happened and go from there. She sighed. She supposed she’d have to accept. “I’ll write to him this afternoon,” she said. “After Jack’s been.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” Harry asked.

“No, I’ll be fine,” she muttered distractedly, reading George’s letter again. “Go to work. He said he wanted to talk to me alone anyway.”

Harry slid the eggs onto the plates. 

Draco hardly ate. She shuffled with nervous energy, glancing at the clock every few seconds. She leapt up when the floo chimed with an incoming visitor, knocking the table and upsetting Harry’s (thankfully empty) Crunchie-themed mug. Harry, too, spared a glance for the clock. Jack wasn’t meant to be here for another half an hour. He followed Draco into the living room at a more sedate pace.

It wasn’t Jack who stood on their hearthrug. Instead, it was a slightly stooped wizard in lime green robes, his fluffy white hair straggling onto his collar. “Mr Lovegood,” Draco said coolly. “Can we help you?”

Xenophilus cocked his head, looking at Draco as if she were quite possibly a crumple-horned snorkack in disguise. Suddenly, his head whipped around so he could catch Harry firmly in his cross-eyed gaze. “Well, Harry Potter.” If he’d looked at Draco like she was a museum exhibit, he looked at Harry like he was the last person one would expect to find in Harry Potter’s living room. He stepped forward, clutching towards Harry’s hand. “Oh, how marvellous,” he said. “My Luna will be pleased that I have seen you.”

“I saw Luna last week,” Harry said, snatching back his hand from Xenophilius’s clammy grip. He wondered how on earth Xenophilius had their floo address. “What can we do for you?”

“Ah,” Xenophilius said, looking just a little lost. “Ah.” He looked at Draco again, his face lighting up. “Yes. Of course! I hear you’ve been let go from the _Prophet_.”

“Yes…” Draco said cautiously.

“Well. I need an editor. That is, the _Quibbler_ needs an editor. My Luna’s been on at me for years to get someone to help. Bit of a nightmare, really. Spend half my time putting the damned thing together. No time to go exploring. Reckon you might be just the one for the job.”

“Editor?” Draco squeaked. “I was just a clerk at the _Prophet.”_

Xenophilius waved the concern away. “Luna wants you. Good enough for me.”

Draco’s mouth opened and closed like she was a fish. Harry moved to wrap an arm around her shoulders. “It’s a big decision, Mr. Lovegood,” he said carefully. “Maybe Draco could get back to you soon?”

Xenophilius nodded serenely as if to unheard music as he gazed out of their windows. “Lovely view,” he informed them. “But tell me- do you ever get Wyrgrizzels in those trees?”

“I don’t think so,” Harry said firmly. “Draco will owl you to let you know, Mr. Lovegood. Thank you very much for the offer.” He took their pot of floo powder from the mantelpiece and offered it to Xenophilius. “Lovely to see you.” 

Xenophilius finally seemed to get the idea, and after another round of handshakes and raptures of delight at seeing Harry, whirled away in the floo. 

“He’s mad,” Draco said firmly. “Completely and utterly mad. I hadn’t realised.”

“You didn’t know that Xenophilius Lovegood was mad?” Harry asked. “How could you possibly think he was sane?”

Draco trailed him as he went back to the kitchen for more tea. “I’ve never actually spoken to him before,” she said. “I thought it was an act to sell his silly paper.”

Harry muttered something about Luna and apples and trees. 

“Have you met him before?” Draco wanted to know. 

“Sit down and eat something,” Harry said, pointedly looking at Draco’s plate of food, cut up into little pieces, but not actually any less than it had been. “Yes, I’ve met him before. He’s crackers.”

“He never mentioned pay, or anything,” Draco said, spearing a piece of bacon and getting it halfway to her mouth. “Does he know, do you think? About why I got fired?”

“No idea,” Harry said. He glanced up. “Are you actually considering working for Xenophilius? Putting together stories on wrackspurts and crumple-horned snorkacks?”

Her eyes glittered. “Editor, Harry!”

“Wouldn’t you rather work for George?” Harry wheedled.

She finally put the bacon in her mouth. Only when she’d carefully chewed and swallowed it did she answer. “No. Shop work?” She shuddered. “It’s beneath me.”

“Hey! I’m a silent partner in that shop!” Harry protested. 

Draco didn’t seem to be paying attention. “If he’s mad,” she mused, “he might not mind about me being female. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice. It’s perfect.” She let her fork clatter onto her plate as she sprang up again, rushing to the roll-top desk in the corner of the living room. “I’ll ask him the terms.” She paused, a roll of parchment in her hand, and finally looked back at Harry. “Or am I being too eager?” she asked. “Should I make him wait a bit, so I don’t seem desperate?”

Harry blinked at her. “Were you like this when I owled to ask you out to dinner?” he asked. 

“Yes. I ran around in a blind panic, not knowing how quickly to respond.”

“It took you three days to owl back!”

She sighed. “I’m being too eager. I’ll wait.”

Harry went over to kiss her soundly. “Leave it a bit, think about it,” he advised, murmuring the words into her hair before he tucked a strand of it back behind her ear. He was sure that she was just over-excited about Jack bringing the essence potions- when she had time to think straight, she’d realise that she didn’t want to work for Xenophilius.

The floo chimed again a few seconds before Jack stepped through. Draco bounded over to him. “Do you have the potions?” she asked.

“Good morning to you as well, Draco,” Jack said, smiling in spite of himself. He scratched his beard. “Or evening… I’m so muddled by the damn time zones. Yeah, I’ve got ‘em. Hold your horses.”

“I should get going to work,” Harry informed them, half hoping Draco would ask him to stay. She didn’t, so he took the offered kiss goodbye and collected his red work robes on his way out.

***

Draco stood in front of the mirror, stark naked. She turned this way and that, appraising her reflection. “Do you think my breasts have grown?” she asked Harry. 

“Yeah,” he said. “They have. Come to bed, love.”

She poked at her testicles. “And these… are they a bit smaller?”

“I don’t know, Draco. I never considered measuring them. Come to bed.”

Peeling back the covers, Draco climbed in next to Harry. “I just want it to be quicker,” she admitted. “Some days I think loads has changed, but some days, I just feel like a boy in a dress.”

“It hasn’t even been three months,” Harry told her. “Jack said it would take at least this long to really start seeing any changes.”

“He won’t put the dosage up,” she moaned, tucking her head against Harry’s shoulder. “I ask and ask…”

Harry kissed her nose, then turned off the lights. “Patience, love.” 

Ten minutes later, Draco rolled onto her back. “Are you asleep?”

“Yes,” Harry muttered. The reply might have been facetious, but he’d been deep in thought about work. With Hermione due to have her baby in a matter of days, he and Ron had been temporarily relegated to desk duty to make sure Ron wasn’t out in the field when she went into labour. Desk duty made Harry itchy. He hated shuffling paper. He always thought he’d forget something.

“Do you talk about me with Jane?”

Harry sighed. “What’s this about, Draco?”

“Just… do you? I’m curious.”

“I talk about everything with Jane. You know that.”

“Me transitioning?”

“Yeah.”

Draco wished she could see Harry’s face, and not just rely on his sleepy, flat tone to figure out what he was thinking. “Are you okay with it?”

It seemed to take him a very long time to answer. Eventually, he rolled over onto his side and gathered her up against him, pulling her into the curve of his body. “How many times do I have to tell you? Yes. I just want you to be happy.”

  
  


***

Ron bounced up from his desk as Hermione waddled into the Auror’s office. “‘Mione! he gasped. Questions tumbled from his lips. “Is everything okay? Why are you here? Do we need to go to St. Mungo’s? Is it time? You should have sent someone to fetch me! Here, let me get a chair…”

Hermione waved off Ron’s questions, and the chair he sent floating over to her in advance of his rapid approach. “I’m fine, Ron. The baby’s not coming. I’m after Harry.”

“Me?” Harry asked, pointing the chewed feather-end of his quill at himself. 

“Yes, you. Are you done for the day? Good. Then we can go back to yours.”

“Let me just get my robes,” Ron said, already trying to shove his right arm in the left armhole. 

“Not you. Just Harry,” Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes ceilingward. “You can go home and start the tea. I’m starving. Come on, Harry.”

Harry had very little chance to ask questions or complain at the high-handed treatment as he was practically frog-marched to the floo by a very pregnant Hermione, who still waddled the corridors of the Ministry at a surprising speed. People scrambled out of the way before her impressive prow.

They found Draco at the kitchen table, sheaves of parchment in piles around her as she put together the next edition of the Quibbler. Somehow, in just a few issues, Harry could see a change creeping into the publication. The crumple-horned snorkack sightings had been pushed to the back pages to make way for an exposé on Gringotts being used to facilitate Muggle money laundering. Hermione dropped into a dining chair like a stone. “Get me a glass of water, would you, Harry?” she demanded. “I’ve been in the testing labs all afternoon. I’m parched.”

Harry picked up a glass from the draining board, filled it, and handed it over. “What’s going on, Hermione?” he asked.

She took a long gulp and sighed in contentment. “I’ve been talking to some people at work, and I think I might have something that could help you. It sounds like it might be similar to muggle gene therapy, but Sam- the principal unspeakable on the project- was pretty vague. Everything’s pretty vague within the department.”

“I know,” Harry said, taking a seat beside Draco. He’d long ago given up asking Hermione how work was going. She could never answer. “What does this have to do with me?”

“Not you. Draco.”

“Me?”

Hermione nodded. “Yeah. They’ve changed the sex of a mouse. Well, several mice. And they’re looking for human trials.”

Draco yelped. “Really?”

“Do you want me to set up a meeting?”

Draco didn’t hug often, but she almost knocked Hermione off her chair.

***

A couple of days later, Draco and Harry waited in one of the Ministry meeting rooms on the atrium level. Visitors couldn’t go into the Department of Mysteries, and even with the weight of Harry’s Auror clearance, he suspected that they were nervous about having Draco in the Ministry at all, let alone poking around whatever the Unspeakables did.

The wizard who entered the nondescript meeting room was short and mousy, nondescript in himself as the room was. A classic Unspeakable, Harry thought. Couldn’t pick him out of a crowd. He nodded to Harry and then to Draco before turning his wand into each corner of the room, flicking shielding and privacy spells into every nook and cranny. Only then did he turn back to them. “Potter. Malfoy. I’m Sam. Granger told you what I’m working on?”

“Vaguely,” Harry said. He knew better than to tell an unspeakable that you knew what they were up to. It made them twitchy. Well, twitchier. “You think you can change someone’s sex.”

Sam nodded once. He stood with his back braced against the door. Harry twitched himself, loosening his wand. He didn’t like having his exit blocked. “The effects, as far as we know, would be permanent,” Sam told them, launching straight in without further pleasantries. “I should get that out of the way. No going back.”

“But what are the effects?” Draco wanted to know.

“Which one of you wants to change?” Sam asked.

“Me,” Draco said at the same moment Harry said, “She does.”

“You’re a man who wants to be a woman?” Sam confirmed, squinting at Draco, long-haired and wearing a pink blouse.

“Yes.”

“Then it makes you a woman.”

“In appearance?” Draco asked.

Sam’s eyes roved constantly around the room. “In everything. As if you’d been born a little girl. It’s on the genetic level. I’m using muggle knowledge and magical means.” He moved suddenly, lunging forward to the table where Harry and Draco sat. Harry had his wand out in an instant, pointing at Sam. 

Sam held out his hands, showing he was unarmed. “Sorry,” Harry murmured, putting his wand on the table in front of him. “Professional reflex.” Even if Sam didn’t know him, or of him, he was wearing his Auror robes.

Sam nodded, making more of an effort to move slowly. He pulled a piece of parchment and a self-inking quill from his pocket and began to sketch. “See,” he said, “the human genetics- the code of life, if you will- is made up of something the muggles call chromosomes. They’re in every cell of your body, for wizards and muggles alike. They’re the blueprint for everything in the human body.” He drew twenty-three squiggles on the page before he tapped his quill on the very last little squiggle. “This one here- that controls if you’re male or female. Males have two different chromosomes here- an X and Y. Females, they have two Xs. So, we yank out the Y, stick in an X instead, and replicate it all over the body. Congratulations. It’s a girl.”

Harry looked at the blob of ink spreading out over the parchment from Sam’s quill. He’d understood barely one word of that. What did these squiggles have to do with being male or female?

“What about the other ones?” Draco asked, gesturing to the twenty-two other squiggles. “What do they do?”

Sam squinted at his inky messes as if they were a foreign alphabet. “Everything,” he said. “We’re trying to pin down magic. Haven’t been able to yet. Seems to thread through almost everything. Except that last pair. X and Y- they’re the same, no matter what we do. Muggles and wizards have just the same X and Y.” 

“Have you tested it?” Harry asked. “I know you lot. You make stuff that you don’t understand and leave it lying around.” He could almost feel the creepy aura of the veil even being near this unspeakable. He shuddered.

Sam didn’t seem offended. “Tested it on mice,” he said absently. “And crups.”

“And what happened?”

Sam hitched his shoulders. “Boys are girls now. Girls are boys. Seem happy enough. Can’t talk to them to ask. Haven’t been able to crack the talking to animals yet.”

“They’re alive?” Harry asked. “None of them died, or got any extra limbs or anything?”

“Not the ones where we only messed with chromosome 23,” Sam said. “The other ones… well.” He spread his fingers, his meaning clear. 

“But I’d be female, all over,” Draco pressed. “Inside too?”

“Seems that way,” Sam replied. “As if you’d been born a girl. You’d look like one, sound like one, even bleed like one. Got some puppies out of the crups three months back. Seem like normal puppies.”

Draco’s breath caught in her throat. “They can have babies? I could have babies?”

“I think so,” Sam said. “If we tested this on you, you’d need to let us keep an eye on you. See what the effects are, see what the effects on fertility might be. Should warn you though, the process looks like it could be pretty painful. All the test subjects survived, but they didn’t look too happy about it at the time.”

Draco didn’t even seem to hear his warning. Her eyes were shining. She looked like she was about to cry, and Harry had no idea if they’d be tears of joy or rage. “I think we need some time to talk about it,” he told Sam quickly. “Can we get back to you?”

Sam nodded. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a card. It was inscribed with only his first name, followed by a Ministry floo address. “Let me know,” he said, and left as abruptly as he’d arrived.

They didn’t talk about it, though. After they left the room, they had lunch in the Ministry cafeteria. After that, the silence on the subject seemed too thick to break. They didn’t mention it at dinner, either, or during the time they sprawled on the sofa watching television. For a while, Harry held his breath every time Draco opened her mouth, wondering if she was about to mention it. She didn’t. 

Three nights later, Harry woke up to moonlight falling across the bed. The curtains open, spilling the light of the full moon and the streetlamp across the sheets. Draco wasn’t beside him; she was on the floor at the foot of the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest as she leaned her back against the footboard. “Draco?” Harry muttered, sitting up. 

“I want to do it,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“I want to do it. The chromosome thing.” 

That woke Harry up as effectively as a bucket of ice water. “Draco, love, it’s completely untested,” he said. “You’re not a mouse, or a crup. Who knows what might happen?”

She looked at him, her eyes catching the silver moonlight and reflecting it back. “I’d be the test,” she said. “Someone has to be. Maybe they’ll call it the ‘Draco process’ or something.”

“You’re already transitioning, though,” Harry said. “Why go for something so untested when you’re getting there anyway?”

She climbed up onto her knees and turned to face him. Kneeling by the bed with the moonlight behind her, catching her platinum hair, she looked like an angel about to say her nightly prayers. “No more potions, Harry,” she said, her voice full of wonder. “No more potions every day for the rest of my life. I could look like I’ve always wanted, feel like I’ve always wanted. I could have babies! Children of our own! Don’t you want that?”

“Of course,” Harry said. “But we can adopt. You know that. You don’t need to go through with this just because of children, or some societal expectation.”

“But I want to!” she insisted reaching up to clasp his hands. “I do!”

  
  


***

“You’re sure this is really what you want?” Harry asked. “Because there’s no going back.”

Draco stared into the swirling, moving depths of the potion Sam had provided, hypnotised. It looked innocuously small, barely bigger than one of her daily essence potions. “It’s what I want.”

“Sam said it would probably hurt like hell,” Harry warned.

“I know. I was there.” They’d discussed it for hours. They’d even met the crup puppies. They were going to adopt one, just as soon as they were old enough to be separated from their mother. 

“Are you sure you’re okay with the physical changes too?” Jack was frowning. He’d reluctantly given the course of treatment his grudging blessing, but he insisted on staying, if only because he was determined that a trained healer should be present. “Periods, for a start, and all the mess and problems that might come along with them? Contraception? Childbirth, if you choose it?”

“Yeah. We've already talked about that.” She looked up at Harry. “Will you still love me?”

“Of course,” Harry said. “I don’t care what you look like, Draco. I care about you.”

Draco nodded. With the potion bottle still in her hand, she wandered to the bedroom, Harry and Jack following as if they were crup puppies. In the bedroom, Draco put the potion on top of the chest of drawers and stood in front of the full length mirror. She began stripping off; first her top, then the bra that held the small swell of her breasts. Jack turned white as soon as he realised what she was doing and fled back to the living room to leave her and Harry in privacy. Her jeans were next, her underwear, her socks. She looked at herself appraisingly, running her hands down her sides. There was a hint of dip of a waist there now, her narrow hips fleshier than they’d used to be. She only had to use the hair removal potions once or twice a week these days, instead of every day like she had before. But still, she wanted more.

Her face had filled out, fleshing over her cheekbones a little, but she still had a knifeblade of a nose. Her jaw was still ‘strong’ rather than ‘delicate’. Her adam’s apple still bobbed in her throat when she swallowed. She met Harry’s eyes in the mirror. “No more boy in a dress,” she said, her voice cracking. She winced and took the potion, gulping it down without hesitation.

“How do you feel?” Harry asked. 

“Nothing,” Draco said, frowning.

“Maybe it takes a while,” Harry said. 

“He said it would start quickly!” Draco whined. She huffed as she looked into the mirror.

“Come and have a cup of tea,” Harry suggested. “Just… get dressed first. I’d rather not have Jack looking at you in all your naked glory.”

Draco had half-finished her tea when she frowned and put a hand to her belly. “Something happening?” Jack asked, eyeing her appraisingly. 

“Maybe…” she said, her eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “Maybe just wind…”

***

Three hours later, Harry wiped the sponge over Draco’s forehead, dripping cool water in rivulets down her ears and neck. She whined, raising a weak hand to try to bat away the sponge. “How’s she doing?” Jack asked from the bedroom doorway.

“Still complaining she’s cold,” Harry murmured, re-wetting the sponge. “But she’s burning up.”

Jack picked up her wrist and took her pulse. “Her heart’s going fit to bust.”

“Should we take her to St. Mungo’s?” Harry asked. 

“Don’t think they could do anything I can’t,” Jack said. “Best to wait it out a while longer.”

An hour later still, Draco sobbed in pain, curled into a tight ball, her knees pulled to her chest. “It hurts!” she wailed.

“I know,” Harry told her. He curled protectively around her, a parenthesis around her body. His sponge left a damp patch on the sheets. 

Jack perched on the edge of the bed, a milky pain relieving potion in his hand. “This should help,” he said. “Do you want to take it?”

Her whine reached a crescendo as she shook her head. “No potions. You said no potions! Sam said no potions.” 

“I know,” Jack soothed. “But it’s hurting you too much.”

She knocked the bottle out of his hand, sending it spinning across the bedroom floor. “No potions,” she hissed through gritted teeth. 

Jack looked to Harry, his eyebrows raised in a question. Harry nodded. Jack brushed the sodden hair back from Draco’s face. “Draco? I’m going to put you to sleep for a bit, honey,” he told her. 

“No!” she snapped.

“You’re in too much pain, love,” Harry murmured into her neck. “Let him help. Sam said it would be okay if we needed to.” 

Draco just gripped her knees tighter to her chest and sobbed as the cramps wracked through her body. Through clenched teeth she eventually muttered an “okay.”

Jack put his wand to her temple and muttered a spell for sleep. Harry expected her to relax, but she didn’t. “Didn’t it work?” he asked.

“It worked,” Jack said grimly. “She’s still in pain, just doesn’t know about it.”

Harry clutched Draco’s tense body a fraction closer as she whimpered in her sleep. “Well, that’s something.”

Harry and Jack took it in turns to sit with Draco as she slept. On the second morning, Jack squinted at her when he came to send Harry to get his breakfast. “She’s smaller,” he said. 

“Huh?” Harry asked. 

“No, really. Look.” 

Harry traced the lines of Draco’s body with his eyes. Jack was right. Her feet didn’t go anywhere near the end of the bed anymore. She was shorter. He tucked her tangled hair back behind her ear. Her face was rounder, her nose and jaw subtly changed. He ran an appraising hand down her body.

He’d become used to the softening of her body over the last few months. The hard planes of the Draco he thought he’d known had slowly melted away into the slight give of the body she wanted to have, her chest rounding slightly and her hips filling. The softer places were more now, though her ribs seemed too protrudent, her spine too knobbly. “It feels like she’s thinner,” he told Jack. “Like, really badly thin.” Like Harry-in-the-cupboard-under-the-stairs thin, but he kept that thought to himself

With a frown, Jack felt her ribs too. He waved his wand in a complicated movement over her body. “I think she doesn’t have enough body fat, so her body’s pulling too much to redistribute,” he said. “At least her bone density still looks okay.”

“Do you think we should wake her?” Harry asked. “She looks… calmer.”

Jack nodded. He lifted the sleeping spell.

“Draco?” Harry murmured, shaking her shoulder. “Draco, love. How’re you feeling?”

Draco grumbled incoherently. “I think we should let her sleep a little longer,” Jack whispered. “She should wake naturally without the spell keeping her under. You should go and have your breakfast.”

“I want to be here when she wakes up.”

“I’ll call for you,” Jack promised. “You’ll only be in the kitchen.”

Stubbornly, Harry shook his head. Jack sighed and folded himself into the chair he’d transfigured by the bed to wait it out.

***

Three hours later, Draco sat up in bed, propped up by a mountain of pillows. “How do you feel?” Jack asked.

She considered the question. “Really odd,” she said. “Everything feels weird.” All her bones felt like they’d been ground down to dust and glued back together again. Every muscle and ligament ached as if she’d run a marathon the day before. Her guts felt tied into beautiful sailor’s knots. She winced a little as she brought her hand up, cupping it against her much-expanded chest. 

Jack nodded to her chest. “I reckon that looks like a pretty respectable B cup,” he told her with a grin. “Nothing to be sniffed at. You’ve got some eating to do before you don’t look like you’re on the verge of starvation, though.”

She grinned back. “Do I look different? I sound different.”

“You sound like you’ve been screaming,” Harry told her from his perch on the end of the bed. “You did scream a bit.” She spared him a sympathetic glance. He was pale, with dark shadows under his eyes. His hair clumped as if it had been soaked in sweat.

“It was more like groaning,” Jack told her. He reached over to the top of the chest of drawers and handed her a small mirror. “See for yourself.” 

She stared at the face staring back at her from the mirror- utterly familiar, and yet, somehow utterly not. It was a bit like looking at a much younger Draco, she thought, but all wrong. Round, pink cheeks, a delicate nose and a narrow pointed chin marked out the highlights of her face, though she could see that she did look too thin. Her mouth was a little fuller, she thought, but her eyes were the same. Her hair was a birds-nest mess. Jack cleared his throat. “If I were you at the moment,” he said, “I’d be wanting to use that mirror to take a quick look at other bits of myself.” He stood. “Private bits.” Clearing his throat again, he gave Harry a pointed look. 

Harry was slow on the uptake, but he eventually got the idea. “Oh. Um. Yeah. Right. I’ll just… go and put the kettle on. Do you want some tea?”

“Coffee,” Draco said. Harry closed the bedroom door after him. She took a deep breath before she pushed the blankets back and pulled her knees up. She screwed her eyes closed as she shoved the mirror down between them. She took in another lungful of air and held it as she opened her eyes to see what that part of her looked like now.

***

Light streamed into the bedroom, bathing the woman lying across it in warm spring sunshine. Harry looked appreciatively at Draco’s new body. The silk dressing gown she wore hid most of it, but the curve of her breasts and hips were obvious anyway. Propped up on one elbow, she smiled at him. “Like what you see?” she asked, a hint of the coquette in her tone.

“Very much.”

“Even though it’s not what you fell in love with?”

He tipped his head to the side to appreciate her from a new angle. “Of course it’s what I fell in love with,” he said. “I fell in love with you- all of you. Not just the shape of you.”

She dipped her head, but couldn’t hide her smile. “I don’t deserve you.”

He didn’t think that deserved a reply. Of course she did, and she knew he thought it too. 

“Do you want to see?” she asked, her fingers fretting at the knot in the dressing gown’s tie. He knocked her shaking hands aside to disentangle it, but did not pull the fabric apart. That was for her to do, he decided. 

He took her hand to press it against the very solid lump in his trousers. “Yes,” he told her. “I’m hoping you might be kind and share your new toy with me.”

“My new toy?”

“Mmmhmm” He ran his fingers lightly over the fabric of her dressing gown, halting about where he thought her new genitals were. “This one.”

She laughed, low and throaty. Her voice was deep, for a woman, Harry thought. Lighter than it had been, but it still sounded like Draco to him. He was pleased. “Just… be gentle?” she asked. “I’m a bit sore.”

“I’ll be very gentle indeed,” he promised. She shucked the dressing gown and watched him, waiting for his reaction. He growled deep in his throat. “Fucking beautiful,” he informed her, undoing his own belt buckle as quickly as he could.

***

Afterwards, they lay sprawled across the bed, Harry enjoying the play of sunlight on Draco’s pale skin. He’d missed the sight of her in the sun. She belonged in sunlight, not in darkness. “So,” he asked, “who has the best orgasms, men or women?”

Draco thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said eventually, grinning wolfishly. “I think I’ll need more experience to make a decision.”

Harry laughed. “Now that,” he declared, leaning over her and kissing her, “is an experiment I can really get behind.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck to keep him there and began to kiss him in earnest.


End file.
